Take a gander at the nearly $4,000 price tag of a fully equipped WinBook J4 732 (with a base price of $3,136) and you'll see why it delivered some of the highest scores on our multimedia tests: It came with three optional mid- to high-end programs, including Adobe Photoshop 7.0 ($609). Photoshop Elements 2.0 would have delivered the same photo score for $509 less.

In other respects this is a borderline system. It's the only notebook based on a desktop Pentium 4 that clocks down under battery power (from 3.06 to 2.15 GHz), yet it returned the third-shortest battery time. (According to WinBook, batteries that were produced after our tests provide 10 percent more juice.) The Pentium 4 CPU helped garner the second-best Business Winstone score. Unfortunately, the system's BIOS doesn't currently support Hyper-Threading, which is the 3.06-GHz P4's claim to fame.

Convenient multimedia buttons are on the front edge, but they're illegible, and there's no mute button. The upsides are four USB 2.0 ports, an SXGA+ screen, and decent speakers. Most WinBook notebooks provide good bang for the buck, but not this one, with or without the software bundle.

Performance

Business Winstone:

24.7

BatteryMark:

1:53

Wireless type:

802.11b

Wireless range:

130 ft.

MultimediaMusic:Photo:Video:

Applications on our tested system kicked up the performance and price: Nero Burning ROM 5, Easy CD Creator, VideoWave 5, and Adobe Photoshop 7 (PhotoShop Elements would have been more appropriate). The front-panel media player controls are good but hard to read. You have to hunt to learn the function of the switch marked "Switch" in the system diagram: It lets you play CDs with the J4 732 off.

WinBook J4 732

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About the Author

Bruce Brown, a PC Magazine Contributing Editor, is a former truck driver, aerobics instructor, high school English teacher, therapist, and adjunct professor (gypsy) in three different fields (Computing, Counseling, and Education) in the graduate departments of three different colleges and universities (Wesleyan University , St. Joseph College, and ... See Full Bio

More From Bruce

Bill Howard is the editor of TechnoRide.com, the car site for tech fans, and writes a column on car technology for PC Magazine each issue. He is also a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
Bill's articles on PCs, notebooks, and printers have been cited five times in the annual Computer Press Association Awards. He was named as one of the industr... See Full Bio

WinBook J4 732

WinBook J4 732

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